


homecoming

by mogirl97



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, felicity does us a solid and takes getting rid of the prison beard into her own hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-08 22:36:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15253566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mogirl97/pseuds/mogirl97
Summary: "By now I’ve learned that I’ll only regret losing more days with you to being bitter about the ones we can’t get back."(season 7 spec fic)





	homecoming

**Author's Note:**

> hi friends!! buzz about season 7 had me wanting to write a little bit of spec for what could happen (ok let's be honest none of this is going to happen on-screen probably but that's what fic is for) when oliver is released from prison. i really have no idea where the prison oliver is being held at is in relation to star city and what his visitation rights are and all that jazz so i purposefully kept some details sort of vague. also this was intended to focus more on olicity and the things they needed to deal with emotionally and stuff which is why i didn't really include a lot of william but this is not me trying to downplay his importance or whatever so yeah just disclaimer on that. I hope you enjoy and as always i would love to hear your thoughts :D

**i. slabside**

Oliver stepped up to the window where he was handed a bundle containing the clothes he had been wearing when he was admitted almost seven months ago. When he had taken them off, there had been a faint hint of Felicity’s scent woven into the threads of his sweater from the parting hug she had given him, but it had faded away. The fabrics felt foreign against his skin after day in and day out in his prison garb. Reacclimation to life outside the concrete walls would take some time.

Once he was dressed, he opened the plastic zip bag that contained his wedding ring and slipped the cool metal band back onto his finger. The sense of wrongness at its absence had not waned with the passing of time since he was forced to remove it. Putting it back on felt like the universe was beginning its return to order after months of being off-kilter. For too long he had been detached from the things that made him human.

He finished the procedure for being processed for release before taking his first steps outside as a (conditionally) free man once more. The fresh air felt different than it had during the few times had had been allowed outside during his imprisonment. It wasn’t taunting him with something temporary.

He spotted her right away. She had her bright fuschia trench coat on and the cool breeze whipped at her hair.

All he wanted to do was run to her, but his legs felt heavy with hesitation. Despite the distance, she had managed a few visits during his incarceration, but he always felt as though the wall between them wasn’t just the literal, physical glass one cutting off contact. Time and time again he had fallen back on the same mistake of making decisions without her. He got the sense that there were emotions that she was keeping a tight lid on, and that was almost scarier than when she was vocal about her anger, her frustration.

She met his eyes and then it didn’t matter that he couldn’t get his legs to move because she was running to him. Throwing her arms around his neck. Holding him as tightly as she could.

She smelled like his soap. His heart constricted at the thought of her using it to keep their sheets smelling like him when she slipped under them at night.

Despite the fact that he held on tight to memories of her, playing them over and over in his head to keep him from losing himself completely to the prison, he had almost forgotten the sensation of having her in his arms. He ran his hands up and down her back. Buried his face in her neck. His nerve endings felt like they were waking up again after being dormant, deprived.

He wasn’t sure how long they stood like that. It could’ve been 30 seconds or 30 minutes. Neither of them wanted to let go.

She pulled away first, but only to cup his face in her hands—rolling up on her toes to meet his mouth for a kiss. It was insistent, needy. An attempt to make up for months of good morning kisses and goodnight kisses and all the kisses in between that they had missed. They were creating a spectacle for anyone who might be around. He didn’t care.

Coming up for air, he pressed his forehead against hers.

“I love you,” he whispered.

“I love you too.” She paused for a second before adding, “But—“

Afraid of whatever was coming next, he braced himself.

“—I hate your beard.”

He laughed. He thought maybe he had forgotten how to, but it shook his chest, clearing away cobwebs and pushing out darkness in his capacity for happiness. 

**ii. home**

A bath felt outrageously extravagant after countless brief, cold showers, but maybe it was exactly what he needed. She always seemed to know.

It was weird to be back in their bathroom. His toothbrush was still sitting in the cup next to hers, their towels still hung side by side, as if he’d never been gone.  

Silently, she began to undress him, leaving his clothes in a pile on the floor. Her fingertips traced the planes of his muscles and it felt like she was recommitting him to memory. His time in prison had left him harder, leaner than he had been in a long time. The result of inadequate meals that he hardly had an appetite for and hours of calisthenics in his small cell to keep his body occupied and his mind quiet.

When she took a small step back, he reached for the ties of her robe and pushed the silky material off her shoulders.

He had missed the softness of her skin. Missed the constellations of freckles.

She tipped her head to the side invitingly. He had missed the way her breath caught when he kissed that one particular spot on her neck.

Taking a hold of his hand, she walked him over to the bath—full of hot water and brimming with bubbles. When she settled in across from him, her legs tangled up with his, she reached for items she had set out on the edge. A razor and a can of shaving cream. He should’ve known she had an ulterior motive for luring him into the bathroom but he didn’t protest.

He watched with fondness as her expression screwed up in concentration and she smeared shaving cream on his face.

There had been no point maintaining any semblance of clean-shaven in prison. No one was waking him up with peppered kisses along his jaw, his cheeks.

As she carefully went about her task, he felt more of himself returning.

“Ow!”

She startled, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorr—“ Her apology fell silent when she noticed his grin and the lack of blood.

“Just kidding.”

“Jerk.” She flicked water at him in annoyance, but her eyes were happy. The image of her red rimmed, watery eyes as she cried in the interrogation room had haunted his nightmares. Seeing the light in them again brought relief to his soul.

When she was finished she set aside the razor and he splashed his face, getting rid of any traces of shaving cream.

She caressed his now smooth skin, her thumbs stroking his cheekbones in an old familiar gesture, and his eyes fell shut in contentment.

Being in prison had given him new perspective on his five years away. How, maybe even more than the things he had done, it was the things he had been deprived of during that time that had made him into the person he was when he returned. Because he didn’t torture anyone in prison, didn’t kill, but without touch in the form of affection and comfort he had started to feel more and more like the ghost who had been pulled off of Lian Yu.

Kissing both his cheeks, she remarked, “Perfect. You look like my Oliver again.”

**iii.**

He woke from the soundest sleep he had experienced since the last time he was in his own bed to her thrashing around in the sheets. Even in the dark he could see the distress carved into her features, the fast rise and fall of her chest as she gasped for air. Guilt turned in his stomach like it always did. He knew what fueled her nightmares--memories she wouldn’t have if he hadn’t brought her into his world of mirakuru and assassins and revenge. He couldn’t just leave her trapped.

_“Felicity.”_

He nudged her shoulder gently in an attempt to break through her nightmare without escalating her panic.

When her eyes remained closed, he repeated her name a little more insistently.

“Felicity. Baby, wake up.”

She jolted into a seated position and her eyes flew open, still flashing with terror as she looked around for whatever had been threatening her.  

“Hey, hey, hey…. you’re okay.” He reached for her. “I’m right here.”

She blinked a few times as she became more awake and aware of her surroundings and he knew he couldn’t account it to her nightmare when she pushed against his chest to put distance between them.

His heart sunk.

The anger he had been waiting for since the moment he was led off in handcuffs in May laced her voice as she retorted, “You weren’t here Oliver.” Shaking her head, she continued, “I have tried to have some compassion and spare you the burden of my feelings for the past few months because I know it wasn’t easy for you at Slabside. _I know._ And I’m so happy to have you home that I almost thought I could just pretend the past few months never happened, but Oliver…” Her voice broke and tears started to stream down her face. “I had to relive my worst nightmare. I had to watch you be taken from me, _again._ I mean, for once, couldn’t you have just been a little selfish? For me. Your wife.”

“Felicity…”

“Don’t. Don’t tell me it was the only way, okay? Maybe it was, but we should’ve come to that conclusion _together._ What you did was unfair and cruel and--and I couldn’t be mad at you for it because I was worried for you and I missed you.” She wiped away some of her tears with the sleeve of his shirt she was wearing before dropping her head into her hands, “I missed you so much.”

Looking back up at him, she continued, “I had to be strong all day long. For myself. For William. Life had to keep going on. But the nights…” She smoothed her hands across the sheets, “I couldn’t even sleep in this bed for weeks because it felt too big and empty without you.”

Nights had been the hardest for him too. For someone who had spent as many nights as he had sleeping on the floor of the foundry or far worse, it wasn’t the lack of a proper mattress that made him restless while he was in prison. It was the absence of her. Her cold feet pressed against his legs. Her hair tickling his face. Her heartbeat in rhythm with his.  

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” he admitted quietly. Any apology he could find the words for sounded woefully inadequate in his head.

She sighed, “I don’t think I need you to say anything. I just needed you to hear me. I needed to be allowed to be angry at you… even though you were stupid and noble and took the fall for all of us.”   

Tentatively, he reached forward and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear before brushing his thumb across her cheek, “I will always want to protect you.” 

“I know.”

She let him draw her into his arms and he pressed a kiss to her temple, “I’m sorry. For everything.”

“I know. And I forgive you.”

“You do?”

He didn’t think he deserved getting off the hook that easily.

“Of course I do. By now I’ve learned that I’ll only regret losing more days with you to being bitter about the ones we can’t get back.” She tilted her head back to look up at him, “But I can give you a whole list of things you can do if you feel like you need to really earn it. Back rubs, breakfasts in bed, new shoes--” Her teasing was cut off by sharp inhale as he slipped his hand between her thighs and her voice was a little breathier when she added, “And I’m sure you have a few ideas of your own.”

“Mhmm.”

**iv. breakfast**

“I think he’s trying to make up for six months in one meal,” he heard Felicity whisper to William as he stood at the stove making eggs, pancakes, turkey bacon, and hash browns. He already chopped up a fruit salad and there was coffee brewing. It felt good to be back in his space, taking care of his family in one of the ways he knew best.

Turning around, he pointed his spatula at them, “I’m very concerned about what you two were eating, left to your own devices.”

A mischievous grin spread across his son’s face, “Oh you know, ice cream for dinner every night…”

“Potato chips count as a vegetable, right?” Felicity chimed in.  

William nodded, “Yeah, we agreed on that. And Big Belly Burger fries.”

Even though he knew they were messing with him, he shook his head in exasperation.

“We’re obviously kidding. We _did_ eat a lot of Big Belly, but Raisa took care of us.”

William snorted in amusement, “Yeah, she started bringing meals over after Felicity tried to make spaghetti one night and almost burned the entire apartment down.”

She shot him a glare, “You promised not to say anything about that.”

Brow furrowed in confusion as to how a recipe that mostly involved boiling water could possibly go so awry, Oliver started to ask, “How--?”

Felicity cleared her throat, “Umm I think that the point is that we missed you and we love you and we’re very happy you’re home.”

He reached across the counter to squeeze her hand, “I’m happy to be home too.”


End file.
